Austin Sales Tax Numbers Indicate Continued Recovery

The monthly sales tax figures are out for November, and they indicate that Austinites spent 6 percent more last month than November 2010. Texas Comptroller Susan Combs’ report says Austin collected $11.2 million in sales tax last month, compared with $10.5 million during the same period last year.

The positive numbers jibe with the improving employment picture in Austin. The latest jobs report showed the local economy added more than 13,000 positions over the last year. But the unemployment rate still rose to 7.1 percent because more people were out looking for work.

Statewide, the sales tax increase was even more dramatic, with revenue climbing by 12 percent last month compared to November 2010. Combs’ office says the state collected $2 billion in sales tax across Texas last month, largely due to growth in the growing oil and natural gas sector.

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Clarification: The Texas Workforce Commission says their data shows 11,100 more people were employed in Central Texas over the past year. 13,300 new jobs were created in the same period, according to TWC statistics More people were employed in Austin last month compared to October 2010 but the unemployment rate rose because more people were looking for work. In the Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos area, 858,100 people had jobs in October 2011 compared to 847,000 in the same month last year. But the jobless rate rose to 7.1 percent in the Austin metro area from 6.9 percent in October 2010 because more people were looking for work, according to the Texas Workforce Commission , which analyzes data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. However, labor economists caution against putting too much faith in city-level jobless figures because the sample sizes are small. They also suggest comparing year-over year rates instead of tracking month-to-month changes because of statistical fluctuations.